Jaws 3 pt.2

In which we introduce our cast and be sort of mean to Lea Thompson...

Ok, let’s tackle the credits.

Since I’m watching this movie in regular old 2-D, the “red superman” style credits as I call them, seem a little odd. I do appreciate the loud “CHOMP!” sound that accompanies the Jaws 3 title card. So I expect there will be lots of chomping in this movie right?

Our illustrious cast. Dennis Quaid as Mike Brody – who has apparently grown up to be an engineer. Who has chosen to work at a theme park dedicated to fish. Despite having had traumatic experiences with sharks in the past. Methinks Mike never really thought this thing through.

Well, don’t worry Dennis, you’ll go on to better things. Hey, you got to hook up with Lea Thompson when it meant something.

Random Factoid: Hooking Up with Lea Thompson never really meant anything – it may have meant a little something during the Back to the Future movies, although it did go into negative numbers (less than anything) after Howard The Duck before evening up to not meaning anything again with Caroline In The City. I think she’s doing Lifetime movies now. Hey, we’ve covered Lea Thompson. Cool! She plays a water-skier on this movie. A professional water-skier at a theme park called Kelly Ann Bukowski who likes to hang around in bars challenging red necks to obscure “games of balance”.

Because if you’re a professional water-skier, you aim high!


Anyways, back to the cast. We have Bess Armstrong who plays Mike’s girlfriend, Kay Kathy Katherine Morgan. Seriously, at different points in the movie she gets called each of these names – pick a nickname and stick with it lady! Katherine is the senior biologist at Sea World. She likes fish. She likes fish so much she’d rather capture a great white who has perhaps killed a Sea World employee rather than kill it. Wonder what that display will look like –

Come see the great white shark!

He killed Ed!

Now go see the alligator who bit off Todd’s arm!

Simon McCorkindale as Philip Fitzroyce, the great white great white hunter. Simon is awesome just because he played “Manimal” (ok, his character's name was "Dr. Jonathan Chase" if you want to get specific) in the short lived TV series “Manimal”:

I fear for her hair.

"Dr. Jonathan Chase... wealthy, young, handsome. A man with the brightest of futures. A man with the darkest of pasts. From Africa's deepest recesses, to the rarefied peaks of Tibet, heir to his father's legacy and the world's darkest mysteries. Jonathan Chase, master of the secrets that divide man from animal, animal from man... Manimal!"

Manimal.


Awesome!


P.H. Moriarty and John Putch. One of them plays Sean. One of them plays the assistant to Manimal and says "guv'ner" alot. I’m too lazy too look up which is which.

It really doesn’t matter.

Random Factoid: The one who played Sean went on to play (under heavy make-up) the alien who slightly beats Wesley on the Star Fleet entrance exam in Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And that’s one to grow on!


Louis Gossett Jr. As Calvin Bouchard…the best part of this movie!!! Has terrific, scene chewing lines – “You talking about some damn shark’s mutha!?!?”

Brilliant!

See, I knew there’d be chomping in this movie!

Random Factoid: To promote Jaws 3, Mr. Gossett hosted a syndicated television program about the making of the movie called, I kid you not, "The Making of Jaws 3-D: Sharks Don't Die". To quote IMDB.com:

Academy Award winner Lou Gossett Jr. takes you underwater on the trail of the great white one and behind the scenes of the latest JAWS movie. Don't miss this television special which unleashes a whole new dimension of thrills - The Making of JAWS 3-D... Sharks Don't Die.

Get it? A whole new dimension? Cause it's 3-D! Ha!

Oh, and promo people? It's not that the sharks in Jaws don't die, it's just that new ones keep showing up!

"Sharks Don't Die"....huh, wonder if that's related to Zombie Fish from part 1.

What else? Well, some guy whose not John Williams does the music. Some people who are not Peter Benchley wrote the script. And some guy whose not Steven Spielberg directed it.

Random Factoid: The script was written by Carl Gottleib and Richard Matheson. I hope its not the same Richard Matheson who wrote the books Somewhere in Time and I Am Legend, a bunch of creepy Twilight Zone episodes and a ton of cool short stories. But it probably is...hey, everyone gets one, ok? Or it could have gone something like this...

Carl: So let's write this thing!

Richard: Okay, well...I think...

Carl: Let's set it at Sea World and we'll make the shark freakishly, unreasonably huge!

That's scary, right?

Richard:

Carl: Right?

Carl Gottleib wrote the original Jaws screenplay with Peter Benchley. Maybe Carl wanted a beach house in the 1980's...

Random Factoid: Joe Alves, this film's director, was the production designer for the original Jaws and Jaws 2. Jaws 3 is his only directing credit.

Next part: Hey, there's water-skiing and a shark and more water-skiing. And why Lea Thompson should never be the top of a water skiing pyramid...I promise, I know you're dying to know!